Trump Nobel Peace Prize odds rise after Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal

The sudden announcement that Israel and Hamas agreed to a U.S.-brokered ceasefire on Wednesday night has revived a once-intractable question in world politics: Could President Donald Trump win the Nobel Peace Prize?

If the ceasefire holds, it would mark a landmark achievement months in the making for a president who has branded himself a global peacemaker. Trump has long insisted he deserves the award, but he doubts the committee will give it to him.

“I’m not doing politics for this,” Trump said when asked about this possibility during the signing of a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan at the White House on August 8. “I have a lot of people who are like that.”

Indeed, many people nominated him; often with public fanfare.

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Nominations and deadlines

The deadline for this year’s nominations was January 31. Some offers to Trump came before that date, but many came after the deadline. If he doesn’t win when the award is announced on Friday, he could be considered again next year.

Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-Y., said she nominated Trump for his work with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on the 2020 Abraham Accords between Israel and Arab states.

According to the Nobel Committee, 338 candidates were nominated this year, including 244 individuals and 94 organizations.

Global pressure for Trump candidacy

International support for Trump’s candidacy came from a range of leaders. On June 20, Pakistani officials said they would recommend him for “decisive diplomatic intervention and significant leadership” during the US-brokered ceasefire between India and Pakistan.

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Three Republican lawmakers nominated him after an Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but that summit has yet to produce a ceasefire in Ukraine. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., joked that if he could broker peace in that conflict, too, he would be the “Democrat leader” tasked with helping Trump win.

Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., nominated Trump in June following the Israel-Iran ceasefire agreement. While Netanyahu said he submitted his candidacy in July, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet announced their candidates following separate US-brokered peace agreements in their regions.

According to Oddspedia, Trump currently leads the betting markets for the award, followed by Sudan’s emergency response rooms and Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition figure, the late Alexei Navalny. Other candidates, such as Greta Thunberg, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the International Criminal Court, often represent causes that conflict with Trump’s policies.

US President Donald Trump (C), Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev (L) and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan display the peace agreement they signed in the White House State Dining Hall in August. Pashinyan said he would nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

Trump: “The people know”

Trump stated that despite his haste in diplomatic initiatives, he has little confidence that the Nobel Committee will recognize him.

“No, I will not receive the Nobel Peace Prize, no matter what I do – including Russia/Ukraine and Israel/Iran, no matter the consequences,” he wrote in Truth Social in June. “But people know, and that’s all that matters to me.”

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Inside the Nobel Committee

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, based in Oslo, consists of five members appointed by the Norwegian parliament to support Alfred Nobel’s will, and awards the prize to the person who has done “the most or the best work for the fraternity between nations.”

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, based in Oslo, consists of five members appointed by the Norwegian parliament to support Alfred Nobel’s will, and awards the prize to the person who has done “the most or the best work for the fraternity between nations.” (Tom Little/Reuters)

The current committee includes Jørgen Watne Frydnes, general secretary of the Utøya Foundation; Asle Toje, a foreign policy expert affiliated with the right-leaning Progress Party; Former Center Party leader Anne Enger; Kristin Clemet, president of Civita, a center-right think tank that advocates for free markets and democratic values; and Gry Larsen, general secretary of CARE Norway.

The composition of the panel offers great odds for Trump. The committee, where most members draw on Norway’s center-left and centrist traditions and align only with Toje’s right-leaning Progress Party, tends to support humanitarian, consensus-based peace efforts over Trump’s deal-oriented diplomacy. He is generally viewed as cautious and pro-establishment, and is unlikely to be rewarded for his unconventional style even in the environment of short-term progress in Gaza.

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Obama’s precedent

The Nobel Committee last faced this level of scrutiny in 2009, when it awarded the Peace Prize to President Barack Obama, just nine months into his first term, citing his work in preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons and promoting a “new climate” in international relations.

Obama was immensely popular in Europe at the time, but by the end of his presidency, US-Russia relations had sunk to a post-Cold War low and American forces were still fighting in Afghanistan and Syria; This is a reminder that the Nobel Peace Prize can be politically fraught as well as symbolic.